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The paper describes the principal features of Omnivore, a spark-ignition-based research engine designed to investigate the possibility of true wide-range HCCI operation on a variety of fossil and renewable liquid fuels. The engine project is part-funded jointly by the United Kingdom's Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) and the Department of the Environment of Northern Ireland (DoENI). The engineering team includes Lotus Engineering, Jaguar Cars, Orbital Corporation and Queen's University Belfast. The research engine so far constructed is of a typical automotive cylinder capacity and operates on an externally-scavenged version of the two-port Day 2-stroke cycle, utilising both a variable charge trapping mechanism to control both trapped charge and residual concentration and a wide-range variable compression ratio (VCR) mechanism in the cylinder head.

The unsteady gas dynamic phenomena in a racecar airbox have been examined, and resonant tuning effects have been considered. A coupled 1D/3D analysis, using the engine simulation package Virtual 4-Stroke and the CFD package FLUENT, was used to model the engine and airbox. The models were experimentally validated. An airbox was designed with a natural frequency in the region of 75 Hz. A coupled 1D/3D analysis of the airbox and a Yamaha R6 4-cylinder engine predicted resonance at the single-cylinder induction frequency; 75 Hz at an engine speed of 9000 rpm. The amplitude of the pressure fluctuation was found to be influenced by the separation between the intake pipes in the airbox. For an n-cylinder even-firing engine, if the intakes are coincident in the airbox, then the fundamental and all harmonics of the forcing function, apart from the (n-1)th, (2n-1)th, etc. will cancel. That is, only the multi-cylinder induction frequency and its multiples will not cancel.

The unsteady gas dynamic phenomena in engine intake systems of the type found in racecars have been examined. In particular, the resonant tuning effects, including cylinder-to-cylinder power variations, which can occur as a result of the interaction between an engine and its airbox have been considered. Frequency analysis of the output from a Virtual 4-Stroke 1D engine simulation was used to characterise the forcing function applied by an engine to an airbox. A separate computational frequency sweeping technique, which employed the CFD package FLUENT, was used to determine the natural frequencies of virtual airboxes in isolation from an engine. Using this technique, an airbox with a natural frequency at 75 Hz was designed for a Yamaha R6 4-cylinder motorcycle engine. The existence of an airbox natural frequency at 75 Hz was subsequently confirmed by an experimental frequency sweeping technique carried out on the engine test bed.

A single-cylinder, 500cc research engine was tested under Spark-Ignition (SI) and Controlled Auto-Ignition (CAI) operation with similar load and speed conditions. Camshafts with low-lift and short duration, run with a negative valve overlap, were used to obtain CAI at wide open throttle. Two different camshaft profiles were tested in order to get a wide span of loads at 1200 and 2000rpm. The SI engine was Port Fuel-Injected (PFI) while the CAI engine was tested with both PFI and an Orbital Air-Assist Direct-Injection (DI) system. To reduce the high Indicated Specific Nitrogen Oxide (ISNOx) emissions at λ=1, 10% External Exhaust Gas Residuals (EEGR) was applied to the SI engine. EEGR reduced ISNOx emissions and there was slight reduction in ISFC. However, when the engine was tested in CAI mode, both ISNOx and ISFC were lower than the SI engine.

The harsh environment presented by engines, particularly in the exhaust systems, often necessitates the use of robust and therefore low bandwidth temperature sensors. Consequently, high frequencies are attenuated in the output. One technique for addressing this problem involves measuring the gas temperature using two sensors with different time-constants and mathematically reconstructing the true gas temperature from the resulting signals. Such a technique has been applied in gas turbine, rocket motor and combustion research. A new reconstruction technique based on difference equations has been developed and its effectiveness proven theoretically. The algorithms have been successfully tested and proven on experimental data from a rig that produces cyclic temperature variations. These tests highlighted that the separation of the thermocouple junctions must be very small to ensure that both sensors are subjected to the same gas temperatures.

This paper describes a technique whereby race car airbox performance can be assessed directly in terms of predicted engine performance by coupling a one-dimensional engine model on a timestep-by-timestep basis to a three-dimensional computational fluid dynamics (CFD) model of an airbox. A high-performance three-litre V10 engine was modelled using Virtual 4-Stroke unsteady gas dynamics engine simulation software, while two airbox configurations, representative of those used in FIA Formula 1 (F1), were modelled using general purpose CFD software. Results are presented that compare predicted engine performance for the two airbox geometries considered in the coupled simulations. Individual cylinder performance values are also presented and these show significant variations across the ten cylinders for each airbox simulated.

The purpose of the ELEVATE (European Low Emission V4 Automotive Two-stroke Engine) industrial research project is to develop a small, compact, light weight, high torque and highly efficient clean gasoline 2-stroke engine of 120 kW which could industrially replace the relatively big existing automotive spark ignition or diesel 4-stroke engine used in the top of the mid size or in the large size vehicles, including the minivan vehicles used for multi people and family transportation. This new gasoline direct injection engine concept is based on the combined implementation on a 4-stroke bottom end of several 2-stroke engine innovative technologies such as the IAPAC compressed air assisted direct fuel injection, the CAI (Controlled Auto-Ignition) combustion process, the D2SC (Dual Delivery Screw SuperCharger) for both low pressure engine scavenging and higher pressure IAPAC air assisted DI and the ETV (Exhaust charge Trapping Valve).

The application of low cost stratified scavenging systems to the two-stroke engine is described. Previous results from multi-stream systems tested at The Queen's University of Belfast are reviewed and results from single- and double-entry air-head engines are presented. The most promising results relate to a 270cm3 single cylinder cross-scavenged engine with the single-entry air-head system. Effective trapping was obtained by injecting fuel into the crankcase and inducing air through an inlet at the top of the transfer ducts. The results showed significant improvements over the standard homogeneous scavenged engine. The brake specific fuel consumption was reduced by up to 22% and the brake specific hydrocarbons by up to 55%.

This paper describes an experimental investigation into the effect of bore/stroke ratio on a simple two-stroke engine. This was achieved with a special purpose engine of modular design. The engine allowed four combinations of bore and stroke to be contrived to yield a common swept volume of 400 cm3 with bore/stroke ratios of: 0.8, 1.0, 1.2 and 1.4. Other factors that might affect engine performance were standardised: the exhaust, intake and ignition systems were common, the combustion chamber designs were similar, scavenge characteristics were similar, port timings and time-areas were kept the same, and cylinder and crankcase compression ratios were also kept the same. The most important conclusions were: Engine power was greatest with the compromise bore/stroke ratio of 1.0 or 1.2. Combustion efficiency tended to decrease with increasing bore/stroke ratio. Mechanical efficiency tended to increase with increasing bore/stroke ratio.